Ten on Tuesday

It's Tuesday, and I'm going back to Ten on Tuesday from this website.

1. What is your favorite zoo to visit?
The best zoo that I've been to is down in the Phoenix area. I think it is the largest one I've been to so that means lots of really cool animals to see. But my favorite zoo is Como Zoo in St. Paul. I used to live a couple of blocks away so I would walk there all the time and wander around. It was fun to see the baby animals grow up.

2. Do you visit a zoo very often?
Not anymore unfortunately. Maybe I'll kidnap my niece and nephew next time I'm home and find a zoo to explore. It is so much more fun to see everything through a kids point of view.

3. Do you have a membership to a zoo?
Nope. I probably would if there was one close by though.

4. When you visit a zoo, do you stay all day or just an hour or two?
I like to see everything! So it can take a long time to explore.

5. Do you buy food at the zoo or pack a picnic lunch?
Generally just bring food to snack on in a park nearby. I don't like to bring it in and carry it around. 

6. What is you favorite animal to see at the zoo?
Tigers. I have always had a thing for tigers.

7. What is your least favorite animal to see at the zoo?
I generally stay away from the reptile exhibits. They are just unnecessary!

8. What is your favorite memory of going to the zoo as a kid?
At the time it was really freaky, but now looking back its kind of funny. I was at the Duluth zoo with my family and we were checking out the bears. They were behind glass and there was a railing to keep unruly kids away from the glass. Apparently I didn't think I was getting a close enough look and so I ducked under the railing to stand right in front of the glass. A bear saw me and started walking towards me, which was really cool. But when he got up to the glass he stood there and then swung his head  right into the glass trying to get at me. SCARY! 

9. Do you visit the gift shop when you go to the zoo?
Nope, see absolutely no need too.

10. On a scale of 1 to 10 (10 being the best and 1 being the worst) how nice is your city’s zoo?
I can't score it because well, there isn't one within an hour and a half of where I live.

Secret's Out!

WE'RE GOING TO HAVE A BABY!!!

I couldn't come up with a clever way of saying it, so I thought I would just throw that in there! We are so excited about it, and as we tell more and more people it becomes even more fun to talk and dream about. 

Lil' B is set to arrive at the beginning of January 2012 (when I write 2012 it seems like sooooo far away!) and everything is right on schedule.  I got to hear the heartbeat again yesterday and that just makes me so thrilled to know that he or she is thriving inside of me, even when other than an expanding stomach I don't have other signs of baby (feeling movement...)

So to catch you up on the last 15 weeks I went from this to this:

To answer the questions that most people ask right away:

1. How have you been feeling? 
           I have been feeling pretty good for the most part. During the first trimester I was definitely tired and had to be very careful to eat all the time so I wouldn't get sick. But now morning sickness likes to hit on Wednesdays in the second trimester. (Don't ask me why, but this baby for some reason doesn't like Wednesdays!)

2. Are you going to find out if it is a boy or girl?
           No we are not going to find out the gender of the baby (at least that is what I'm saying right now, I'm about 80% good on waiting and Bryce is 100% so I think we'll wait)

3.Do you have names picked out?
           Yes we have been thinking of names, and won't be sharing. But I will say this better be a boy or else I think our daughter will be nameless for quite some time!

4. When did you find out/What was your reaction?
          We found out on May 2nd. I had gotten up early to take a test because I  woke up in a bad mood and wanted a whole lot of coffee without feeling guilty about it. So I was expecting a negative to show up and then I would go on my way to the kitchen and make a pot of very strong coffee. Much to my surprise two little lines showed up right away. I just stared at it for a long time thinking there was some mistake so I took another test and it was positive too. That's when it all hit me, I was truly pregnant. I started just shaking and all I could do was whisper, "Thank you God" over and over. Since we started talking about expanding our family I had come up with so many adorable ideas of how to tell Bryce. They all went out the window that morning! I didn't want to wake him up so I had a little bit of time to grab some scrap material and make a little bandanna for Bentley to announce it for me. So I made this:

I put it on Bentley because he will wait at the bottom of the stairs for Bryce to wake up and then we could tell the great news. What I forgot to take into account was that Bentley gets so excited when he sees Bryce that he starts jumping up and down and won't stand still. So Bryce couldn't read what it said and I just had to tell him myself. But needless to say he was pretty excited too!

Our "Yeah! We're having a baby!" pictures

 We feel so blessed by this gift from God! Throw in the occasional holy crap we are going to be parents, but overall so very happy and anxious to meet this little one! We look forward to sharing part of our journey with you here, so stay tuned!

Back in the Badlands

This past weekend was the first time we've had decent weather and a free weekend, so we took advantage of it and headed out to the badlands. It felt so good to be outside again! We went out to a part of the trail that we tried out last fall, and decided we like it even better now. I think it might actually be in the National Grasslands but has the best of both worlds of the badlands and grasslands. This trail is way off the beaten path so there aren't very many people on it so you really feel like you own this whole beautiful park!

Bentley was sure glad to be out and about again too!

The best part of it is there so much room for my boys to run and chase each other!

While we were out there we found out that our puppy loves water! He jumped across so many times, but more often he just jumped into the river and paddled around.

We all had such a blast, and hope to be out there soon again!

Ten on Tuesday - Photo Edition

Hi All,

Sorry I've been so absent on the blog lately just haven't had much to say. But I'm back now with more useless facts about me, and not only just facts but pictures today too. I know you are just so terribly excited!
 Questions taken from this website

1. Your favorite piece of furniture in your home.
2. Your bed as it looks right now.

Well it works out pretty nicely that my favorite piece of furniture is my bed, and I get to show off how it looks tonight. I am not a bed maker. More of a throw the blankets up in the morning and call it good. The reason the bed is my favorite is because well it is dang comfortable and super high. The actual bed frame is one that I had had my eye on for a couple of years before I got married and when it came time to chose our bed Bryce let me pick whatever I wanted so it was an easy choice (especially when it was on sale that week- score!)

3. Your favorite thing on your wall.

These two are actually both given to me by my parents. The top picture was a Christmas gift a couple of years ago. I've always loved Paris pictures and so this was a wonderful gift! The second is a scroll they brought back from China last summer. They searched high and low to find one that would be the right color and size and I think it wasn't until one of the last days of their trip did they find this one. I tried to upload the picture they sent to me, they found this one but it was huge, like 6 feet tall by who knows how many feet wide. This one fits a little better on the wall.

4. Your pantry.

I sadly don't have a pantry. Thankfully I do have quite a few cupboards in the kitchen, well at least enough for us right now. I feel like I've only posted pictures of the kitchen lately so I won't put any more of those up.

5. Your favorite piece of jewelry.

Obviously my engagement/wedding rings are my favorite. I wish I had a better picture, well one that actually shows the rings. I tried to get a picture of it tonight but couldn't get it to focus properly. So you'll just have to pretend you can see what it looks like.

6. Your house shoes.

 I live in these guys. They are so comfy and warm, and unfortunately starting to fall apart. I don't think I can find a pair that will compare to them. 

7. Your messiest room.

 This is one of the upstairs guest rooms. Probably are least used room, which is unfortunate because I really like this one. But we are redoing some things downstairs and had to take all the furniture out of the office and living room so there is furniture everywhere in the house! Its pretty crazy Normally much less furniture and you can actually walk into it.

 8. Your most comfortable shirt

 Not much to say but it is comfortable! Nice stretch material, fits really good, and the sleeves are really long (which when you have ape like arms like I do, that is a big deal!)

9. Your favorite book.

My two favorite books are this, The Hawk and the Dove, and Jane Eyre. I only have Jane Eyre on my Nook and thought that would be a very weird picture. Most people have heard about that book, but the Hawk and the Dove is a not so well known book but I HIGHLY recommend it. So fantastic. I've read is numerous times and you always find more and more treasures in it.

10. Yourself.

I realized that I don't take pictures by myself. And I really didn't want to post a pic of what I look like tonight so this is the last one that we took. (And look, I'm wearing my comfy shirt!) 


Thanks for playing along with Ten on Tuesday - Photo Edition

Finished Cabinets

Here they are! I'm so excited with the final results, the new pulls on the doors really make a huge difference.

 And because I like to see before and afters side by side:

And now that the cabinets look so great, my list of to do's in the kitchen is growing very fast. 

So don't be surprised if you see a post called "More kitchen changes" coming soon! 

Kitchen Cabinet Refacing

A couple of posts ago, I alluded to this project that my mom, sister, and I started a week and a half ago. Awhile back I read a blog review about a product, Rustoleum's Cabinet Transformation. I was intrigued and read every review I could about it, and I was hooked. After some eye batting and sweet smiles and pretty pretty pleases Bryce came around to the idea too. It is really simple, but does take some time. There are four steps, 1- Degloss  2- Bond Coat   3- Glazing  4- Top Coat   (I'll go into detail further down)

Here's the before shot. Sorry for the bright glow in the middle!

After taking off all the doors and hardware, lay everything out and prop them up to get easy access to the edges (we used cd's under the edges to lift the doors off the table) One of the reasons I was so intrigued by this product is that you don't need to sand everything, you just go right over the existing finish. You can tell that I did sand a few spots just to get the holes a little smoother.

Step 1  De-glossing

I hate prep work on projects, with a passion, so this wasn't my favorite step, but it wasn't terrible either. The kit comes with one bottle of de-glosser and 2 scrub pads (I had to buy more after the doors were done to finish the frames) Simply coat your scrub pad with the de-glosser and scrub every inch of the cabinets. This gets rid of any dirt and grease that builds up on cabinets. Follow up with a wet and dry rag and let everything dry for an hour.

Step 2 - Bond Coat

This is where it starts to get fun. Putting the color on the cabinets. Nothing more really to say about this. You put two coats of the paint on the cabinets. It goes on really easy like paint, but is thinner more like a stain. You'll still see some of the grain through the bond coat which gives it more of a realistic look. I chose the color Cabernet. There are only about 20 different colors,  you can't just pick any color you can imagine - but they do have a wide range so you should find something you like. I wish I had invested in better brushes to minimize visible brush strokes, so you might want to look into that if you do this.

 It was kind of crazy down in the basement. Wet red doors everywhere!  We labeled each door with a number/letter on masking tape to help keep track of where they go. We were terrible at moving the tape with the doors so that didn't really help. I had one door that had three tags at the end of all this mess. But if you can keep up with it, it is a great idea!

Step 3 - Glazing

This step I was the most nervous about. I thought it was going to be very hard to get it even, and was just clueless on how to do it. But it was better than I thought it would be. You are bringing to life the wood. You can see the difference between glazed and  not in the next two pictures. A foam brush seemed to work the best to put the glaze on. It comes in a tiny little bottle, you have to be pretty careful so you don't use it all up. Which is weird because all the other steps I have almost half of what they give you left. Anyways, you lightly brush the glaze on and then using the cloths from the kit you wipe it off. This will take off the glaze from most of the wood, but it stays in the grooves and grain to accent it. This really steps up the look of the wood. If more than one person is going to be doing this step make sure you keep an eye on each other's work so you are wiping off the same amount of glaze, keeping everything the same tone. I should also mention that this step is optional. You can decide if you want it when you get here.

Unglazed vs Glazed

Step 4 - Top Coat

I don't have any pictures of this step, but you are just brushing a clear top protective coat on the cabinets. Once again a foam brush seemed to work the best. Make sure that it is a really even and light coat because if it is too thick it will be milky in color. So really watch drips on the edges and in the corners of the frames.

Here is a little comparison of the before and after. Please ignore all the mess, the kitchen was a disaster and I'm so happy to be slowly getting it back in order.

A very inexpensive way to improve the look of the existing hardware is just to coat it with some spray paint. We used Rustoleum's Metallic Silver. It is amazing! Coats so well and has such a polished finished look. After coating the hinges with this spray paint, Bryce declared that he could work for Rustoleum because their products are A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. So just three quick coats on both sides, and we have beautiful expensive looking hinges for just $4. 

And here it is, the almost finished Cabernet Cabinets!!! The pulls will arrive in the mail later this week, and once they are installed I'll take another picture to give the full reveal. 

So enjoy your sneak peak.

As you might have been able to tell, I am in love with this product! And highly recommend it to anyone that is looking to freshen up their kitchen, or really any piece of furniture. Here are my favorite things about this product:

1) No sanding or priming! Just just right in and start painting. No dust from sanding everywhere!

2) Super easy clean up. Brushes wash out faster than even regular paint with just water.

3)You get the look of real wood. 

4) Very cheap. I did all of this with the small kit for only $80 and comes with almost everything you need,

A Puppy's Devotion

It's no secret around here that I have some competition for Bryce's attention. We have this dog that LOVES Bryce. When I give Bryce a hug, Bentley will jump up and hug him too and he always has to beat me to the front door when Bryce comes home. I don't mind this, it means that they get to wrestle and I don't have to get involved. They both get tired out and get wrestling out of their systems. Then my little pupster can come curl up on the couch with me!

This morning I got up first and went upstairs to make coffee, check email, and watch my brother's robotics competition online. Bentley got up with me, but only made it up half the stairs before he realized that his main man wasn't with us. He promptly went back down the stairs and curled up to wait for his arrival. Then his day can start! He doesn't even come up here to eat, go outside or play with any of his toys!

I peaked down the stairs and saw this. Too adorable.

I just love his puppy devotion!